Recipe Round-Up: Appetite For Reduction

This post marks the 500th post for this blog! Mind you, this is over eight years... some years have been more productive than others! But the last couple of years I have been trying to post more consistently. Anyway, thank you to everyone who takes the time to read and comment on my ramblings here, it means a lot! I am so grateful for all the wonderful blogging friends I have made throughout the years as well!

On this special numbered post... a recipe round up! And one of my favourites as well. Appetite for Reduction, by the amazing Isa Chandra Moskowitz, is a glorious cookbook. While the recipes are all lower in fat compared to Isa's other cookbooks, they are bursting with amazing flavour. You can see what else I have made from this book here.

Pasta de los Angeles and Chili-Lime Rubbed Tofu: I always enjoy angel hair pasta when I have it! I have never been able to find wholewheat angel hair, so it is regular wheat for me (but that is fine). The pasta is tossed with shallot, garlic, coriander, tomatoes, lime, black beans and spinach. Although the beans make it a full enough meal, it is suggested to pair it with the Chili-Lime Rubbed Tofu. To make this less spicy for me, I used paprika with a bit of chilli added, and I only used half the rub ingredients for 250g of tofu.
Rating: Pasta :), Tofu :)



Bhutanese Pineapple Rice, Green Beans with Thai Basil, and Red Thai Tofu: This is a great combination! I had been waiting to use my red rice for something, and this was perfect. For the rice, I used half the amount of red curry paste (to keep it mild). This dish goes nice and crunchy on the bottom, and was pretty delicious with the pineapple all through it! The green beans were amazing! They went crisp and the flavour was just so delicious (though so simple). The tofu was also fantastic! Again, I used half the amount of curry paste, and I just left out the red capsicum that was meant to be in it. Such a wonderful dinner!
Rating: Rice :), Beans :D, Tofu :D



Mac & Trees, Cool Slaw, and Buffalo Tempeh: Mac and Trees is mac and cheese with broccoli. It is nice, but the cheese sauce in this book is not the best (I far prefer cashew based sauces to roux-based sauces). Still it is a good mac recipe and makes four big servings. For the tempeh, I cooled it down by combining V8 juice with the Frank's hot sauce to mellow it out. It was still just a bit too spicy, so next time I must increase the V8. This is the way I make buffalo sauce recipes mild (though you could always ditch the buffalo all together for BBQ sauce). The Cool Slaw also helps bring the heat down, with a delicious cashew based dressing. I replaced the chopped onion in here with onion powder. The dressing calls for 5 tsp of apple cider vinegar, and at first the vinegar taste was a bit too strong. But it mellows with time.
Rating: Mac :), Tempeh :), Slaw :)



Spicy Marinara Sauce: The book contains a number of variations on a marinara sauce. The spicy one is just the regular recipe chili flakes added. I served it with some spinach linguine, and some tofu meat balls.
Rating: :)



Lentil Bolognese: I love red lentil pasta sauces. This cooks up so quickly, and you add the cooked lentils into the marinara sauce. It is very saucy, and made a very good coating for my pasta.
Rating: :)



Eggplant Marinara: For this one, you saute the eggplant first and then add the rest of the sauce ingredients. Lovely with some white beans added as well to bulk it out.
Rating: :)



Marinara with Peas: This blog post is the marinara edition! Heh. In this one, you just add peas to the marinara recipe! I served it mixed through cooked penne with some kidney beans.
Rating: :)



Tortilla Soup: Moving on to the soup chapter! Tortilla soup isn't something that I am used to, but it is kind of fun! In this one I left out all the chiles and capsicum, which was fine. It is also full of beans, corn and coriander, so I wasn't missing out on flavour!
Rating: :)



Cauliflower Pesto Soup: This is a lovely soup! Basil and cauliflower give a wonderful pesto flavour, which is highlighted by the toasted pine nuts on top (these are optional, but do it). Serve this with a grilled cheese sandwich!
Rating: :)



Yam and Black Bean Soup with Orange and Cilantro: This is a really fun soup, the orange and yam (I used sweet potatoes) make it a little bit sweet, and it is also packed full of black beans, coriander and tomatoes.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photos of the Post



And of course, my reasons for everything! This photo was taken this morning. Sahara had found the tiny sunny corner on the cushion, which meant Dim Sim had to walk right by her to get to her sunny spot on the window sill. As you can see, Dim Sim is not impressed. My loves!